Preview: Cecil Beaton &#8212; Theatre Of War

Cecil Beaton is rightly known as one of Britain's best photographers of celebrity and royalty (viz the V&A's exhibition of Queeny photos earlier this year). But he also played a lesser-known role during the Second World War. Beaton was commissioned by the Ministry of Information in 1940 to document the conflict throughout Britain, the Middle East, India, China and Burma. He ended up becoming the longest-serving professional war photographer, and later counted this work as his most important.